As a then "newbie fan", people told me this about ST:TMP all through 1980 and 1981. <snip> Still love TMP!

Click to expand...

We're all familiar with "The Tale of Boy Therin and Star Trek: The Motion Picture," thank you. In this forum alone, you must have told it more than a hundred times; I don't doubt that some here are now able to repeat it from memory and I hope that they're not also haunted by it when they sleep. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to give that story a rest for a bit?

"The Man of Steel" will bump STID out of IMAX, and it will undoubtedly have a very good opening weekend, but the 40 reviews so far on Rotten Tomatoes have it at only 70% fresh. Even many of the fresh reviews are really lukewarm. Maybe MOS won't have very good legs. That will certainly help STID if fewer folks walk out of MOS this weekend saying, "Wow, that blew me away. I have to see it again," versus, "You know, STID was much better. I think I'll go see it one more time, instead."

Click to expand...

I think you're overly optimistic. MOS will, in my view, kill all the May movies. Trek will last for a while, but it's nearing its last days above 1 million. My opinion, of course.

Click to expand...

I probably am being optimistic (which is against my nature) thinking MOS won't have legs and that will benefit STID. Still MOS is down to 65 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes (60+ reviews) and there are few effusively kind reivews among the positive ones. Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" (who loved STID) absolutely panned the movie on radio, today.

Actually, I was really hoping it would be better. I've always liked Superman more than any other comic book hero, and was rooting for a treatment of his character that would finally rise to the quality of the best treatments of the Marvel characters and Batman. As it is, I think I could miss MOS and not feel I missed out on anything special. So, I guess I'm going on a gut feeling that I'm not alone in that opinion.

Interesting note: In his "Chicago Tribune" review, Michael Phillips said there are $170 million worth of product tie-ins in MOS. He also said the crowd he watched the movie with exited the theater quiet and a little shell-shocked.

I liked the film Watchmen, but I think the tone in that film is wrong for a Superman film. And I think that tone has been brought into MOS, which will weigh the film down. And, I think the people involved may have missed the point of Superman. I am reading that his persona as Clark Kent is largely missing from the film.

On the persona of Clark Kent, I remember a quote from Kill Bill, Volume 2. Bill, the head of an international assassin guild, observed that,

Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

Only 25 percent of those who went to see "Into Darkness" were under 25 years of age. That's considerably less than the 35 percent that the previous film attracted, and it's far more older-skewing than the first-weekend audiences for Disney's "Iron Man 3," which was 45 percent under 25, 27 percent families and 21 percent teens.

Only 25 percent of those who went to see "Into Darkness" were under 25 years of age. That's considerably less than the 35 percent that the previous film attracted, and it's far more older-skewing than the first-weekend audiences for Disney's "Iron Man 3," which was 45 percent under 25, 27 percent families and 21 percent teens.